Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, November 21, 2024

Did JNF plant forests to erase Palestinian culture? A 1920 article debunks a popular Palestinian myth

The Journal of Palestine Studies recently published a paper named "Fire as Elemental Intifada in Colonized Palestine."

The abstract seems to celebrate a devastating 2021 fire in the forests near Jerusalem as a type of "intifada."

In August 2021, wildfires erupted in the southwestern hills of Jerusalem, engulfing and ultimately destroying up to 20,000 dunums of pine forests planted by Israeli settlers. The burned landscape revealed a stunning vista of terraced hillsides, a visual testament to the existence of Palestinian land-based relations hidden under the camouflaging foliage. In this experimental visual essay, fire is postulated as an elemental force of Indigenous Palestinian resistance to the ongoing conditions of environmental and human Nakba imposed on Palestinian lands and bodies under Zionist settler colonialism. Fire, as a transformative and atmosphere-altering medium, is thus theorized and visualized as elemental intifada.

I don't have access to the "experimental visual essay" but it references New Arab article that says:

The wildfires which ravaged Jerusalem's hills in August, and which tore through 25,000 dunams of dense woodland laid bare a long-hidden landscape, full of forgotten traces alluding to the crimes which took place in 1947-8 during the Nakba.

This has served as a reminder of the ethnic cleansing which took place in the hilly region southwest of Jerusalem, in which all the Palestinian villages were destroyed and their remains concealed.

The fire returned the hills to their natural state, allowing their underlying shape to become visible once more: their historic terraced slopes testifying to the work of Palestinian farmers over centuries, as they strove to cultivate the land and make it bear fruit for its inhabitants.

While Israeli media mourned the burning forests and the wrecking of dozens of Israeli homes which had been built on the ruins of Palestinian villages, ancient agricultural terraces were revealed which go back more than 400 years. They alluded to the complex farming methods which Palestinian peasants developed, bringing into being flourishing agriculture.

An op-ed in Haaretz added:

On my trips to the West Bank and the occupied territories, when I passed by the expansive areas of Palestinian farmland, I was always awed by the sight of the long chain of terraces, mustabat or mudrajat in Arabic. I thrilled at their grandeur and the precision of the work that attests to the connection between the Palestinian fellah and his land.

The photos of the destroyed forest do show the terraces that were built into the hills.

It sure looks like proof of a deliberate Jewish plan to cover up ancient Palestinian farming methods, doesn't it?

Except that when you look a little further, you learn that:

1. The forests were planned and planted before 1948, before the "nakba."

2. They were planted with full cooperation and knowledge not only of the British but also the local Arab population.

3 The idea of terrace farming on hills and mountains in the region is at least 2,000 years old, way before "Palestinians."

An article in the San Francisco Examiner from April 11, 1920, shows a diagram of the plan by the British to return the land to the state it was in in years past - because it was ruined by the Ottoman Empire, especially during World War I. Amazingly, this diagram shows the terraces on the hillsides and the plan to bring water back to the areas because it had fallen into disuse and drought.

The article says:

A vast scheme of irrigation and reforestation, under the control of a British governmental commission, has been completed and approved both by the enlightened Jewish leaders, as well as the Arab Moslems under the guidance of the Grand Mufti, their head. The project contemplates raising the level of the Sea of Galilee, upon whose waters the Saviour walked, by damming its outlet into the River Jordan. It also contemplates subsidiary dams along the course of the Jordan and similar manipulation of other streams that run through the valleys and deep gorges of Palestine. An elaborate system of pipings from these reservoirs, great numbers of artesian wells in other regions and the planting of hundreds upon thousands of trees on the now desolate slopes of hill and mountain, are depended on to give the country the moisture that is the only thing needed to make it blossom into the garden it was when Moses looked down upon it from the top of Mount Nebo and saw the promise of Jehovah fulfilled.

... How different is that picture now, which the observer can see from the same mountain top, or from one of the hills just outside Jerusalem, where, according to Dr. Simon Lowenstein, one of the American Red Cross commissioners to Palestine, one can look over the country to the Mediterranean Sea on one side and to the Red Sea on the other! "Palestine," he says. "is now a tragically barren land. One can walk for miles without seeing a tree or a shrub large enough to cast any shade, and yet this land of our ancient fathers was and can become again an agricultural paradise." It is largely the destruction of the forests that retained and fed out to Palestine the waters that made it fertile, which is the cause of its present aridity.

The effect of the destruction of trees upon a land is too well known to need detailing. Forest masses act not only as reservoirs for rain, but as one of the causes of precipitation. The rainfall soaks into the ground and is retained by the roots, finding its way gradually into brook and stream. Besides this, a gradual evaporation is caused from which comes humidity to be in due course condensed into .storm and shower. When trees are ruthlessly cleared away the rain either soaks rapidly through the ground or is carried off at once along anything which provides a watercourse.

For hundreds of years Turkish misgovernment caused the land to be stripped of its natural resources in the way of lumber. But during the war this process of deforestation went on at a tremendous rate. Dr. Lowenstein, before quoted, and Dr. John H. Flnley, his associate in the Red Cross Commission to Palestine, says of this: "The process of deforestation was tremendously accelerated during the great war. Whole sections of Palestine were cleared of livestock and trees. The Mount of Olives is almost denuded. In some quarters of Bethlehem and other communities the people burned everything they could spare."

While the plan of irrigation is still in abeyance, that of reforestation is in actual effect. In various favorable sections, nursery gardens have been planted. Almost a quarter of a million timber and fruit trees have been set out and are growing upon the barren mountain slopes. Upon these slopes occur pockets of earth debris, left behind by the rushing floods of the winter rains. Not only do these provide excellent planting spaces, but by growing in them the trees the area of fertility is enlarged by the action of the roots in breaking up the stony soil.

Concerning the wanton destruction of trees during the war, "Palestine," an Arabic journal published in Jerusalem, recounts with bitterness the repressive measures of the Turks and Germans before the liberation of the country in cutting down the olive trees for fuel for the railroads. It tells how the owners of the ancient trees, the "blessed" trees, watched the process of cutting with streaming eye and fainting hearts.

When the Turkish officers were replaced by Germans, the paper says, their hopes rose that the remaining trees would be spared. But instead of clean, cutting steel which left a stump which might sprout again, dynamite was employed, utterly destroying the roots, among which the destructive energy was placed. The account closed with a well-known Arabic proverb, "'After I avenged myself upon Omar, I wept for Omar.' The Turk was more merciful than the German."

The roses of Sharon have all been dead for long the plain that was once so fragrant with them being now, for almost eight months in the year, little better than a dusty desert, but under enlightened control of the country these roses will bloom again..

It is clear that the reforestation of the land was only of areas that were not being farmed because they were barren. There were no farms, no crops, in these areas. The British didn't confiscate land that was legally owned or actively farmed.

The Arab population welcomed the plans, including the Mufti who preceded the antisemitic Mufti Husseini.

But what about the terrace farming? Isn't that Palestinian?

Those specific terraces may have been built by local Arabs, but the idea pre-dates them by many centuries. The Mishna (gathered and written from the first to third century CE) lays out the laws of the sabbatical "shemitta" year, and says that building terraces ("steps") in the hills is not allowed to support farming on the seventh year:

The Hebrew word used for "steps" is "madregot" - almost certainly the source for the Arabic "mudrajat" mentioned in Haaretz as proof of the Palestinian origins of the methods.

So literally everything being claimed by the Palestinians now about these forests is a lie. It was not their innovation, Jews didn't plant trees to erase them but to save local farming, and the Arab leaders at the time supported the reforestation plan to counter the damage done under Ottoman Muslim rule.

Not only are today's Palestinians lying, but they are celebrating the destruction of forests in Israel and the environmental damage that results. When it comes down to it, all their moral posturing and supposed love of the land is outweighed by their immense hate of Jews.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The lies of the ICC in its warrants to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant

Today, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.

But the specific charges are secret.

The arrest warrants are classified as ‘secret’, in order to protect witnesses and to safeguard the conduct of the investigations. However, the Chamber decided to release the information below since conduct similar to that addressed in the warrant of arrest appears to be ongoing. Moreover, the Chamber considers it to be in the interest of victims and their families that they are made aware of the warrants’ existence.

Even that justification is antisemitic. The court is stating that Israel would assassinate anyone who testified to its alleged crimes.

The details they do give are filled with easily provable lies and the outrageous implication that if they only had a little more evidence, they could also charge Netanyahu with "extermination."

Showing that they are liars requires only one proof. Here's what they say about medicines into Gaza:

The Chamber considered that there are reasonable grounds to believe that both individuals intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity, from at least 8 October 2023 to 20 May 2024.

UNRWA's database of incoming items into Gaza show that 1,409 trucks entered Gaza under the category of medicines, medical supplies and similar between October 8 and May 20. The total amount classified under those categories add up to 31,474 pallets of items. (Some of them were mixed with other supplies like food or beds but most of them were exclusively medical supplies.)

Here is a small sample from the last week of December.

Thousands of those pallets came through Kerem Shalom. Every one of these trucks was coordinated between Israel and the NGOs listed. It is ludicrous - and slanderous - to claim that the thousands of man-hours Israel worked to facilitate medicines (and food and other supplies) into Gaza are part of an effort to exterminate Gazans, or merely an effort to appease Western governments.

Moreover, we know that Hamas was confiscating the medical and other supplies that came from Egypt and then selling them to those in need, to bankroll its aggression.

While all of the ICC charges are disgusting lies, this is enough to prove that they know that they are lying. And as such the court loses any claims to have any interest in justice.

Quite the contrary. It allows its own antisemitism to override the truth. Which makes the ICC profoundly unjust and in fact a source of bigotry.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

On May 3, the UN OCHA announced that the number of missing persons in Gaza jumped from 7,000 to 10,000, quoting Hamas.

As I showed then, the number had been exactly 7,000 for five months.

The number of people said to be missing under the rubble remained at 10,000 for the past six months according to Hamas and therefore according to UN-OCHA.

Could 10,000 people really be buried under the rubble for six months? None of them have been dug out by their families?

This week, Hamas apparently decided that this statistic was getting old. In its latest dump of made-up statistics, it now claims 11,000 people missing in Gaza under the rubble.

In general, Gazans are no longer in buildings. No on is being buried under rubble nowadays, except perhaps in tunnels. Israel has not been doing massive airstrikes on buildings for many months. There is no way the number of missing is increasing.

The previously made-up 10,000 number has been repeated mindlessly as fact by Turkish news agencies, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Amnesty International (saying they were "presumed dead,") Yahoo News ("according to health authorities,") the Washington Post ("local authorities estimate") and WHO (no caveats).

Once again, there is no source for these numbers. None. No one even knows how these numbers are estimated.

Hamas literally makes then up. And the media and NGOs treat them as if they have legitimacy, even when they pretend to be objective by adding "according to authorities."

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

11/20 Links Pt2: Why they refuse to see Jews as victims; Hamas' sexual crimes: Uncollected evidence come to light; Twitch star: 'Cheerleading for terrorism'

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: Why they refuse to see Jews as victims

It was the speed with which the racism fearmongers became racism deniers that was most unnerving. Virtually overnight, as men whose only crime was their Jewishness were still being patched up in Amsterdam hospitals, the preening racism denouncers of what passes for the Euro-left were saying this wasn’t racism. The very people who see racism everywhere could not see it here, in the broken teeth, black eyes and bloodied faces of Israelis who became the prey of a self-described Jew hunt earlier this month in Amsterdam. Confronted with beaten, bruised Jews, they said, for the first time I can remember, ‘Maybe it wasn’t a hate crime. Maybe it was something else.’

It has been extraordinary. The people who wring their hands over the racial microaggression of asking a woman in African garb ‘Where are you from?’ were positively blasé about the racial macroaggression of a mob smashing in a man’s face because he ‘helped a Jew’. The people who cry ‘Islamophobia!’ when a schoolkid lightly scuffs a page of the Koran struggled to see the Judeaophobia in a gang of self-styled Jew-hunters accosting men and asking them: ‘Are you Yehudi? Are you Jewish?’ The people who madly insist that every tabloid piss-take of Meghan Markle is an act of unforgivable ‘racist bullying’ refused to accept that ‘Jew hunters’ on mopeds who fired fireworks at Israelis might have been racist bullies.

The zeal of the downplayers felt alarming. There are prominent British and American leftists who for a whole week devoted every waking hour to disproving the claim that Israeli Jews were the victims of a mass, coordinated racist attack. The moral energy they normally reserve for proving that the West is institutionally racist they now expended on proving that a pogrom did not take place in Amsterdam. That was their main beef: the use of that p-word by Dutch and Israeli politicians, Jewish groups and sections of the media. ‘There were no “anti-Semitic pogroms” in Amsterdam’, they cried, as noisily as they normally cry that racism is the disease our societies will never shake off.

On the rubble of the ‘pogrom’ – their scare quotes – that they feverishly rebutted, they built a new narrative. It was the visiting Israeli Jews, the brutes and bigots who support Maccabi Tel Aviv, who really instigated the violence. They were the real racists. They brought the ‘spirit of Israeli facism’ to Amsterdam. It was these ‘marauding gangs’ of foreign fans who carried out a ‘racist rampage’, cried the BDS movement. They tore down a Palestinian flag, they made offensive anti-Arab chants – ‘incitement to genocide’. These thugs embody ‘the most fascistic, right-wing, racist, misogynist elements of Israeli political culture’, said one observer. The Israeli disease, infecting Europe.

And in this retelling, in this ruthless confiscation of the rights of victimhood from the Israelis battered for being Israelis, the ‘Jew hunt’ came to be reimagined as ‘street justice’. That’s how one left-wing commentator in the UK referred to the hunting and assaulting of the visiting fans – these ‘notoriously thuggish’ football followers started a fight in the Dutch capital and ‘the street justice [was] swift’. You know who else thought that beating Jews to a pulp was a ‘just’ response to alleged misbehaviour by other members of their ‘race’? I’m not even going to say. It’s too easy.

It has added up to one of the most pitiless dismantlings of a people’s experience of racism that I can remember. The very activist class that insists we respect the ‘truth’ of what ethnic-minority people tell us were now giddily shredding the truth of what happened on the streets of Amsterdam, of this jodenjacht organised via Telegram and visited on anyone in the city that night who looked Israeli or Jewish or who just helped a Jew. And here’s the worst thing: the dismantling has been successful. These radicals’ jealous, furious chipping away at the Israeli Jews’ experience of racial hatred has had the desired effect: more people are backing off from the word pogrom. Now even the political class and media elites wonder out loud if it was just a scrap, no big deal, nothing to trouble the history books with.

Kassy Akiva: Ketanji Brown Jackson To Headline Event Featuring Activists Who Justified October 7

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is set to headline a conference in Boston this week that will also feature activists who justified Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.

Jackson will deliver a Thursday keynote address at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) convention. Representing educators from K-12 to college, the 100-year-old organization adopted a 2017 vision calling on members to “apply the power of language and literacy to actively pursue justice and equity.”

The four-day-long convention, which has the theme “Heart, Hope, Humanity,” will also include Sawsan Jaber and Hannah Moushabeck, two activists who have been outspoken in justifying Hamas’s October 7 attack multiple times.

Jackson faced criticism during her confirmation hearings for her membership in Harvard’s Black Student Association, which invited anti-Semitic speaker Leonard Jeffries to speak during her time at the school. Jackson told Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-NC) that she did not attend Jeffries’ speech and does not share his views.

Mika Hackner, a Senior Research Associate for the Jewish Institute For Liberal Values, said it is “distasteful and unconscionable” that NCTE put Jackson in a position where she will be appearing at an event with anti-Israel activists.

“A Supreme Court justice, a representative of the highest court in our land, charged with protecting the laws and values of our liberal democracy, should not be sharing any kind of engagement or platform with activists who promote the view that Hamas are “legitimate resistance,” Hackner said.

Hackner noted that several sessions as a whole focus on “using education as a tool of social justice activism.”

Canadian-Israeli philanthropist Sylvan Adams challenges Roger Waters to debate

Roger Waters, co-founder of the renowned British rock group Pink Floyd, who has become notorious for his outspoken anti-Israel and antisemitic statements in recent years, may have met his match in Sylvan Adams, the noted Canadian-Israeli philanthropist who made aliyah in 2015 who bills himself as Israel’s “self-appointed ambassador-at-large.”

In October, Adams appeared on the CJN Daily podcast of the Canadian Jewish News, in which he discussed the anti-Israel protests that took place at McGill University in Montreal and the defacement of the $30 million Sylvan Adams Sports Science Institute which he donated to the school – the largest-ever gift to a Canadian university campus.

In the course of the podcast, Adams, who has long promoted Israel to the world through sports, music, and culture, expressed an interest in initiating a commemorative concert after the Swords of Iron War that would feature the two remaining members of Pink Floyd – who have repudiated Waters’ antisemitic views – and Irish musician Bono, who condemned the October 7 attack.

Ideally, he said, the concert would be held in Re’im, where hundreds of Israeli youth were massacred at the Nova Music Festival on October 7.

In response to Adams’ podcast, Waters penned an article that appeared on a progressive Canadian website called “rabble,” in which he termed Adams a “looney Zionist billionaire who thinks that he can reunite Pink Floyd to promote and celebrate the genocide of the Palestinian people.” He called Adams a “racist supremacist” and suggested that he lacked the courage to participate in a debate to discuss whether Israel’s actions in the war could be defined as genocidal.

Waters also accused Adams of bringing Madonna and the Argentine national soccer team to appear in Israel as an attempt to “whitewash Israeli apartheid.”

Speaking with the Jerusalem Post, Adams said, “He accuses me of being a looney Zionist billionaire. I don’t think I’m looney, and I don’t think that being called a Zionist is an insult. I think that Zionism, the love of our Jewish homeland of Israel, and appreciation for our 3,500-year magnificent journey is a beautiful story of a persecuted yet indestructible people who achieved something seemingly impossible by returning home. If Roger Waters thinks that Zionism is a dirty word, I vehemently disagree. It’s simple Jewish nationalism for our homeland of Israel. Not only am I not ashamed, I’m extremely proud and proud to call myself a Zionist.”

11/20 Links Pt1: US vetoes UNSC ceasefire resolution; Senate Democrats Launch Campaign To Kneecap Jewish State; Reservist KIA in Gaza is 800th IDF war casualty

From Ian:

Another Report from Human Rights Watch: Ignore Hamas, Blame Israel

On November 14, Human Rights Watch released a report titled “Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged,” which accuses Israel of numerous war crimes in Gaza.

The report is based primarily on interviews with 39 Gaza residents, along with analysis of photographs, satellite imagery, and evacuation orders the IDF published on social media.

Of course the war has caused tremendous suffering for Gaza. While fighting against Hamas in a densely urban setting makes this largely inevitable, Israel should not be immune from scrutiny as to whether it has done enough to respect the rights of Gaza civilians. So investigation and analysis of Israel’s conduct is certainly in order.

However, as we’ve unfortunately become accustomed to from Human Rights Watch, this report is biased against Israel at every turn.

Standard of Perfection
Humanitarian law is extraordinarily demanding in the protections it affords civilians — so much so, that no army has ever succeeded at upholding humanitarian law completely. In fact, most do a terrible job. A reasonable question might be to ask how Israel’s humanitarian score compares with other Western nations in their own recent conflicts. But Human Rights Watch holds Israel to a standard of complete perfection — any time Israel falls the slightest bit short of what they believe humanitarian law requires, no matter how impossible the situation, this report immediately accuses Israel of a war crime.

For example, in declaring most evacuations of civilians illegal, the report says, “failure to ensure the security and the guarantee of protections of displaced persons as they fled and in the places to which they were displaced would still render the displacement unlawful.”

In other words, the IDF told civilians to leave a residential area where it was planning to operate against Hamas missiles and tunnels, where they would be in enormous danger should they remain.

But even though evacuation was clearly a good idea and would make them much, much safer, since Israel couldn’t guarantee that they would be completely safe while traveling and at their destination, Human Rights Watch says the evacuation was a war crime.

But how can anywhere in Gaza be completely safe, with Hamas popping up all over? This demand that Israel ensure complete safety for evacuees is impossible, and that would be the case for any other army as well.

The report even criticizes Israel for this: “The evacuation orders also failed to take into account the needs of people with disabilities, many of whom are unable to leave without assistance.”

Of course it would be best if Gaza residents had plenty of time to leave in an organized fashion, with special consideration for those with disabilities. But rockets were raining down on Israel’s cities, with hostages languishing in captivity and Israeli soldiers in danger of attack by Hamas as they wait. Human Rights Watch makes it sound as if Palestinian civilians are the only ones whose rights need to be considered. They’re not.

It Is Time for Qatar to Choose a Side: The United States or Terror Groups

For the sake of peace and stability in the Middle East, it is vital that the United States drastically change its relations with Qatar. Qatar has long played a double game, seeking good relations with the United States while maintaining ties — if not support — for its adversaries. That pattern appears to be repeating itself again, with competing reports about whether the leadership of the terrorist group Hamas will continue to be welcome to live in Doha.

It is vital that the United States convince Qatar to play it straight, and cut off political and financial support for Hamas while increasing accountability.

Earlier this month, Biden administration officials claimed that Qatar was evicting Hamas from the country. But, just days later, the Qatari Foreign Ministry strongly denied those reports. Instead, Qatar said it was suspending its role as a mediator in hostage and ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

Yet, an Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel that last week senior Hamas officials left Qatar for Turkey, a NATO ally that also risks running afoul of Washington if it provides safe harbor to terrorists.

Amid this confusion, it is not clear what exactly is taking place: has Qatar actually expelled Hamas’ leadership, but is denying it to save face publicly? Would Doha welcome these officials back if they agree to negotiate? Which Hamas members, if any, still reside in Qatar?

Whatever is happening behind the scenes, the ambiguity of the current situation is representative of Qatar’s broader strategy to play all sides and keep everyone guessing regarding its loyalties and interests. Thus, while it hosts, and helps pay for, the largest US military base in the Middle East at al Udeid, Qatar has also provided a haven and financial support to radical groups, terrorist organizations, and American adversaries such as the Taliban, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood, while maintaining good relations with Iran.

Doha portrays its refusal to choose sides as a strategic asset, not only for itself but for others as well. For example, Qatari officials have claimed that allowing Hamas officials to reside on its territory is a selfless investment in diplomacy. Qatari Defense Minister Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah explained that Hamas officials would remain in Doha “not because we want Hamas to stay in Qatar, but because we want to facilitate the negotiations with the parties through the organization’s office.”

Yet, there is good reason to be skeptical of these claims of Qatari neutrality and magnanimity.

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

When Donald Trump won the election, there was great relief in Israel, something like a collective sigh. There was also anxiety. It’s a long time until January, and we don’t know how much longer the hostages can hang on. But there was, and is, a further cause for anxiety, and that concerns Trump’s cabinet picks, which here in Israel we can’t help but think: are these anointed ones good or bad for the Jews and for Israel?

Matt Gaetz

We might as well begin our examination with Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick for attorney general, a bad choice by all accounts. Gaetz has what we call in Hebrew, “panim doresh steerot,” a face that needs slapping. There is a lot of noise about his sexual peccadilloes, corruption, and illicit drug use. We remember how Gaetz forced Kevin McCarthy out of his role as House speaker. It’s not as if Gaetz didn’t have plenty of support for the ousting of McCarthy. Nonethless, McCarthy insisted that Gaetz had led the charge against him specifically to wiggle out of an ethics investigation:

“I’ll give you the truth why I’m not speaker. Because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old, an ethics complaint that started before I ever became speaker. And that’s illegal and I’m not gonna get in the middle of it.

“Now, did he do it or not? I don’t know. But ethics was looking at it. There’s other people in jail because of it. And he wanted me to influence it.”

Indeed there are plenty of reasons to dislike Gaetz, but from the standpoint of the Jewish people, the main issue should be his horrid antisemitsm. Gaetz voted against the Antisemitism Awareness Act, saying that International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism would hold the bible itself as antisemitic because, Gaetz claimed, Christian scripture dictates that the Jews are responsible for Jesus’s death.

Um no. That would be the Romans. Which makes Gaetz a horrible person for pinning this death on the Jews. It’s that kind of slander that leads and has always led, to the letting of Jewish blood. There can be no benign reason for an educated person to say such things. Matt Gaetz hates Jews.

“This evening, I will vote AGAINST the ridiculous hate speech bill called the ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act,’” said Gaetz prior to the vote. “Antisemitism is wrong, but this legislation is written without regard for the Constitution, common sense, or even the common understanding of the meaning of words. The Gospel itself would meet the definition of antisemitism under the terms of this bill!”

Matt Gaetz, in addition to blaming the Jews for what the Romans did, invited Charles Johnson, a Holocaust denier and white nationalist, to be his guest at a 2018 State of the Union address. Gaetz claimed he hadn’t know these things about Johnson, then subsequently defended him, and denied the accusations. Johnson, said Gaetz, is “not a Holocaust denier. He’s not a white supremacist.” But Johnson is both.

When crazy Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene compared COVID public safety measures to the Holocaust, Gaetz defended her. “[Greene] defends Israel and attacks Democrats. Media falsely slams [Greene] as antisemitic. Some Republicans take the bait, sadly,” said Gaetz.

Our attorney general-to-be has been known to hire staff members who hang with white nationalists, and say white nationalist things. He called the ADL “racist” when that body called for Tucker Carlson to be fired from Fox News on account of Carlson pushing the Great Replacement theory. Matt Gaetz said that Carlson is “CORRECT about Replacement Theory.”

The Great Replacement theory, as described by the ADL, “claims there is an intentional effort, led by Jews, to promote mass non-white immigration, inter-racial marriage, and other efforts that would lead to the ‘extinction of whites.’”

RFK Jr.

Moving along, we come to RFK Jr., Trump’s pick for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. RFK Jr. is another one for conspiracy theories. While dining with journalists, Bobby Kennedy Jr. aired a nutty conspiracy theory positing that COVID was designed to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.

“COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.

“We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact,” said Kennedy, who also claimed that vaccine mandates made people less free than Anne Frank under Nazi rule.

VIDEO:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims coronavirus was an "ethnically targeted" bioweapon designed to be more deadly for caucasians and blacks — and spare Jews and Chinese https://t.co/xfAdovs0sY pic.twitter.com/og4xHdKs7x
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) July 15, 2023

After the footage was leaked, Kennedy went into damage control mode, claiming that he never EVER suggested the virus was designed to spare Jews.

“I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews,” wrote Kennedy. “I accurately pointed out — during an off-the-record conversation — that the US and other governments are developing ethnically targeted bioweapons and that a 2021 study of the COVID-19 virus shows that COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races since the furin cleave docking site is most compatible with Blacks and Caucasians and least compatible with ethnic Chinese, Finns and Ashkenazi Jews.”

RFK Jr.’s friendship with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was cemented through just such views as these. Bobby Jr. in fact, called Farrakhan a “truly great partner” for helping him spread the idea that vaccines cause autism. Andrew Wakefield, now disgraced, concocted this “theory” in 1998 and was subsequently exposed as a fraud. When COVID hit, Farrakhan urged his congregants to "follow Robert Kennedy," claiming that scientists developed the coronavirus vaccine in order to "depopulate the Earth."

If RFK Jr. and Farrakhan agree on these nutty conspiracy theories, what other views might they share in common?

Of course, RFK Jr. was wise to quickly disavow his affinity for Farrakhan the antisemite at the outset of his presidential campaign. When asked about the relationship between during his campaign, Kennedy said he is an “opponent” of Farrakhan and "never endorsed anything that Louis Farrakhan has said," which of course, is a lie.

Should Jews look the other way on RFK Jr.? Perhaps. Bobby Jr., speaking to Reuters, expressed support for Israel’s fight against Hamas in Gaza, and for the return of the hostages. Asked if he was in favor of a temporary Gaza ceasefire, Kennedy said, "I don't even know what that means right now," commenting that every previous ceasefire was “used by Hamas to rearm, to rebuild and then launch another surprise attack. So what would be different this time?

"Any other nation that was adjacent to a neighboring nation that was bombing it with rockets, sending commandos over to murder its citizens, pledging itself to murder every person in that nation and annihilate it, would go and level it with aerial bombardment," said Kennedy.

"But Israel is a moral nation. So it didn't do that. Instead, it built an iron dome to protect itself so it would not have to go into Gaza," he added.

Nutty conspiracy theories notwithstanding, so far Bobby Jr. sounds okay on Israel. Perhaps he inherited his views from his father? Bobby Sr. spent time in Pre-State Israel, reporting for the Boston Post and was kindly disposed toward the Jews, and supported their efforts at statehood. Unfortunately, he was murdered because of this support.

Tulsi Gabbard

We come next to Tulsi Gabbard, who is to be national intelligence secretary. It’s hard to dislike Gabbard. She’s a serious person, and is unafraid to change her mind when changing her mind is called for. But she backed the Iran deal, and that’s a huge problem. Gabbard also voted against a House resolution to condemn the U.N. Security Council resolution regarding Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, saying, "While I remain concerned about aspects of the U.N. resolution, I share the Obama administration's reservation about the harmful impact Israeli settlement activity has on the prospects for peace."

Seriously?? Jews building homes has a harmful impact on “prospects for peace?” That’s just reprehensibly antisemitic, and I don’t care how popular it has become to repeat the canard that Jewish families building homes, threaten peace. It’s a disgusting and stupid thing to say no matter how many people say it and no matter how often it is said. It’s just, pardon my French, total crap.

I hope that Gabbard will now be able to take a step back and examine the issue from a more commonsense position with good people to take her through it. Maybe now, as part of the Trump cabinet, she’ll educate herself on Israel. In her past, however, she has taken some problematic positions.

Gabbard defended Ilhan Omar, for example, when Omar tweeted that US support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins.” Speaking to CNN, Gabbard said, "There are people who have expressed their offense at these statements. I think that what Congresswoman Omar was trying to get at was a deeper issue related to our foreign policy, and I think there's an important discussion that we have to be able to have openly, even though we may end up disagreeing at the end of it, but we've got to have that openness to have the conversation."

Gabbard also voted for House Resolution 246, which expressed House opposition to the BDS movement and affirmed support for a two-state solution. When asked to explain her vote, Gabbard said she supported "a two-state solution that provides for the rights of both Israel and Palestine to exist, and for their people to live in peace, with security, in their homes. I don't believe the BDS movement is the only or best way to accomplish that. However, I will continue to defend those who choose to exercise their right to free speech without threat of legal action."

The two-state solution is a naïve and unworkable concept, and always was. Neither of the parties want it. So why do pols continue to push the two-state solution down the throats of people who do not want it, and do not see it as the solution it is touted to be? Why does Tulsi Gabbard, who is clearly a clear-thinking person, think the two-state solution makes any sense at all?

There can only be two reasons for supporting the two-state solution: 1) Anti-Jewish prejudice, that is to say, a desire to take land away from the Jews and give it to the people who want to kill them, and 2) Ignorance on the part of people who have never actually studied the matter. “Two-state solution” is just something people say. Endlessly. Meaninglessly. One would hope that Tulsi would know better.

But we have all watched Tulsi Gabbard evolve in her politics. We watched her leave the Democratic Party, become an Independent, and finally, become a staunch, pro-Trump Republican. Perhaps Tulsi’s views will evolve on Israel and antisemitism.

There is reason to be optimistic about Gabbard. Tulsi Gabbard criticized Biden and Harris for not joining a solidarity March for Israel as the Jewish State fights the war forced on it by Hamas. She is clear in that she supports a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. When Gabbard was still a Democrat, in 2015, unlike 58 other Dems, she did not boycott Netanyahu’s address to Congress, stating that “It’s unfortunate that an issue as important as preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons has been muddled by partisan politics. This is an extremely serious issue, at a critical juncture, that should not be used as a political football.”

Gabbard also said that it was important to “rise above the political fray, as America continues to stand with Israel as her strongest ally.”

Nice words and a real show of support for Israel.

Mike Huckabee and Pete Hegseth

Now we come to Mike Huckabee and Pete Hegseth. I know what you’re going to say. Why are they included in this list of potentially problematic Trump candidate members? Both are staunch friends of Israel. They don’t fall prey to propaganda, don’t use terms like “Palestinian” or “West Bank.” They don’t have a problem with Jewish sovereignty, or Jews building homes in their indigenous territory.

Take for example Mike Huckabee, who is slated to become the next ambassador to Israel. Asked whether he would stop using the terms “Judea and Samaria” to describe what most of the world now calls the “West Bank,” Huckabee said, “I can’t be what I’m not. I can’t say something I don’t believe. As you well know, I’ve never been willing to use the term ‘West Bank’. There is no such thing. I speak of Judea and Samaria. I tell people there is no ‘occupation.’ It is a land that is ‘occupied’ by the people who have had a rightful deed to the place for 3,500 years, since the time of Abraham.

“A lot of the terms that maybe the media would use, even the people who are against Israel would use, are not terms that I employ, because I want to use terms that live from time immemorial, and those are the terms like ‘Promised Land’ and ‘Judea and Samaria’. These are biblical terms, and those are important to me, and so I will continue to follow that nomenclature unless I’m instructed otherwise, but I don’t think that’ll happen.”

Huckabee has also said plainly that there is “no such thing as a ‘Palestinian.’” Being that there was never an Arab state called “Palestine,” that makes perfect sense. As Huckabee rightly stated during his 2008 failed presidential campaign, the assertion of the existence of a “Palestinian” identity, is only “a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.”

So far, there is not one thing here with which this writer disagrees.

Of the moronic idea known as the “two-state solution,” Huckabee commented in a 2015 interview on Israeli TV, that it is “irrational and unworkable,” and also said that “there’s plenty of land” outside of Israel in the “rest of the world” for a Palestinian state.

All true.

Pete Hegseth, picked for secretary of defense, says all the right things when it comes to Israel. At a 2018 Israel National News conference Hegseth spoke of the right of the Jewish people to claim their indigenous territory for themselves, and themselves alone.

"I, and others, had a chance to go see the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, the Western Wall Tunnels, and so much of the Old City," said Hegseth. "When you stand there, you cannot help but behold the miracle before you."

"It got me thinking about another miracle I hope all of you don't see as too far away. 1917 was a miracle, 1948 was a miracle, 1967 was a miracle, 2017, the declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was a miracle, and there's no reason why the miracle of the reestablishment of the Temple on the Temple Mount is not possible. I don't know how it would happen, you don't know how it would happen, but I know that it could happen, that's all I know," he said.

"A step in that process is the recognition that facts and activities on the ground truly matter. That's why going to visit Judea and Samaria, understanding that the very sovereignty over Israeli soil, cities, locations, is a critical next step to showing the world that this is the land for Jews, and the land of Israel," concluded Hegseth.

So why are Mike Huckabee and Pete Hegseth included in an article on Trump cabinet picks who might not be good for the Jews/Israel? Both men are respectful of Jewish beliefs and rights. That respect springs out of their Christian faith, which is fine. What would not be fine is if either the two men or Israeli officials began to speak about “shared values” or “Judeo-Christian values,” as if that were a thing.

Judaism stands alone. We Jews have our own faith, our own laws, and a religious narrative we do not share with Christians or those of other faiths. We should not want Christians telling us they are like us, and we should not want Israeli leaders to do so, either. That should be and must be a red line that is respected on both sides.

We can see the good in these two men without searching for nonexistent religious common ground. It is hoped that Huckabee and Hegseth understand these sensitivities and will remain as respectful to the Jewish people as ever. On the other hand, will official Israel be able to control itself—to refrain from slobbering over these men? It’s a problem.

It is so rare for Israel to have staunch friends, people who understand us, and believe in our right to our rights. Their sincere friendship makes us Jews feel like we actually belong to the family of man—at last there is someone who sees us.

Within this warm circle of cozy coexistence lies a temptation—the temptation to assert that we are alike. But we are not, and it is wrong to say otherwise. Hegseth, despite the allegations against him in the media, seems like a nice person. Huckabee, too. And that’s where the similarities start and end.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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The current edition of Biblical Archaeological Review includes a seven page ad for Archaeological Paths, which offers exclusive tours of Egyptian sites.

All of their ads prominently feature Zahi Hawass, "The World’s Most Famous Archaeologist," who used to be the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities in Egypt.

He is also an antisemite.

In 2009 he told an Egyptian TV interviewer that the Jews control the entire world.

He also told an Arab newspaper that "the concept of killing women, children, and elderly people ... seems to run in the blood of the Jews of Palestine" and that "the only thing that the Jews have learned from history is methods of tyranny and torment—so much so that they have become artists in this field."

In 2010, he said "the Ibrahimi Mosque and the Mosque of Bilal Ibn Rabah [The Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb] have no connection whatsoever with Jewish history, "

When Egypt was restoring synagogues, Hawass supported the effort - but only as tourist sites. He said he would not allow any Jew to pray in the restored Maimonides synagogue in Cairo.

He is clearly an antisemite. And yet nobody seems to have a problem with this self-promoting hater.

Beyond that, there is evidence that Hawass is corrupt. His tour agency boasts:

The Royal Egypt Tour provides unparalleled access to the wonders of ancient Egypt and offers special entries to sites that are off-limits to the general public.

...The Royal Tour offers private entrances to the entire Giza pyramid complex and the Luxor Temple outside of opening hours. Only with us will you stand between the paws of the Great Sphinx and gain exclusive access to the places closed to the public! Thanks to special permission granted by the Minister of Antiquities, you will see the Tombs of the Pyramid Builders in Giza, an active excavation site. With Archaeological Paths you will experience Egypt like no one else!

Dr. Zahi Hawass: "No one can tour Egypt like this. Except for you – when you come and join me. You will visit many unique sites that very few people can see. You will be treated like royalty, this is why we call it the Royal Tour."

So Zawass can bring tourists to places that are not open to the public, because of special permission given to him by the Minister of Antiquities - which he himself used to be.

He is given special treatment and is allowed to enrich himself because of his connections in the Egyptian government, and the corruption is mutual.

Is it a favor? Does the ministry take a cut from the tours? Either way, for the nation of Egypt to give preferential treatment to a former minister that enriches him is clear corruption.

This sort of corruption is normal for Egypt. Before Israel took over Rafah, Egypt granted an exclusive license to a tour operator with connections to the ruling party in order to charge exorbitant rates for Gazans to escape Gaza. He made millions of dollars.

Instead of publishing ads for his tour, Biblical Archaeology Review should be investigating exactly what this Jew-hater is doing on his tours, how he has access that no one else has, and find out how deep this corruption goes.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

International Muslim clerics issue a letter saying that murdering Jews on October 7 was worth tens of thousands of Gaza deaths

There was a kerfuffle in Gaza in response to a statement by a major religious figure criticizing Hamas for its attack on October 7 2023:

Professor Dr. Salman al-Dayah, a former dean of the Faculty of Sharia and Law at the Islamic University of Gaza, issued a fatwa against Hamas for their October 7 attacks, the BBC reported on Friday.

Fatwa is an Islamic religious decree made by a recognized Islamic jurist, Faqih, as a response to a question asked by a judge or government.

The document accused Hamas of “violating Islamic principles governing jihad.”

Dayah added, “If the pillars, causes, or conditions of jihad are not met, it must be avoided in order to avoid destroying peoples' lives. This is something that is easy to guess for our country’s politicians, so the attack must have been avoided.”

In response, a group of international Islamic scholars issued a letter to counter al-Dayah's fatwa and support Hamas' decision to murder 1,200 Jews.

It is quite lengthy, and respectful of Dayah's position and reputation. Here are some highlights of their arguments for murdering Jewish civilians and putting Gaza civilians at risk.

First of all, it is divisive to oppose Hamas terrorism:

The most dangerous thing about the matter is that the article may be understood as an absolute rejection of jihad in the Gazan reality, and a mistake in its path originally, and an underestimation of its great achievements throughout its long blessed journey, despite the sacrifices that are necessary on this path, and the matter is not related to the last flood war only, and from here it is necessary to respond and warn against this grave mistake that represents a great danger to the blessed journey of jihad, and comes at its origins and foundations, and weakens the resolve of the mujahideen, and divides their ranks...

Second, it argues that jihad is a holy obligation but most Muslims never get a chance to do it personally.

The great freedom of Islamic work in calling to Islam, preparing for jihad, and other things, which was never available, and is rarely available anywhere in the world.

Moreover, the jihad is necessary to destroy Israel and build a new Caliphate.

This is more important, that this jihad removed the state of weakness, feebleness and submission before the enemy, and kept the flame of this great duty in the heart of the nation, especially in Jerusalem and its environs, alive and burning; as a prelude to its renaissance, its people and its promised second caliphate - God willing - and this is the basic mission of the people of Palestine until they rescue with their nation the captive Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is the responsibility of the entire nation,...These great achievements and others are more evident than the sun at noon.

The war may be necessary to perform the ultimate genocide of Jews, as Allah promised.

He did not notice the intermingling of the Sunnahs in it, and that perhaps what is happening is the ultimate corruption and great arrogance that will lead the Children of Israel to their faces being ruined, and the rescue of Al-Aqsa from them, and their disappearance as Allah the Most High promised, so it will be a link in the chain of jihad and ribat on the path to victory.

Tens of thousands of dead Muslims is a small price to pay for the chance to eradicate Jews:

What is required in the affliction of calamity is patience, regardless of the form of the affliction or its cause; In any case, if people are patient, this trial will be good and a mercy for them, regardless of its cause.

The attack on October 7 is a legitimate act and a fulfillment of the duty of jihad, and there is no doubt about that, and its people will be rewarded with the reward of the great jihad, God willing

The letter does admit that, perhaps, the timing of the attack was wrong, and that perhaps Hamas could be criticized for locating its military targets among the people. But those are individual errors and do not detract from the greater issue of the importance of Jihad.

Then comes more antisemitism, not sullied by the pretense of being merely "anti-Zionist."

Whoever knows the truth of the Jews, their beliefs, their arrogance, their crimes and their great corruption on earth, and their religious war with us under the shadow of their extreme right-wing government, knows the truth of what we have mentioned, and the truth of the Almighty’s saying: "And never will the Jews or the Christians be pleased with you until you follow them... And they will not cease fighting you until they turn you back from your religion if they are able" [Al-Baqarah: 217].

The attacks on October 7 were defensive, not offensive, and therefore obligatory:

The October attack in itself is a defensive jihad, not a jihad of demand, because the reality is that the Jews are besieging Gaza, and occupying its air, sea, and envelope before it, so it is occupied in reality, so expelling them from it is obligatory and is a defensive jihad. And even though we allow disagreement in the ruling on the timing of the attack in terms of right and wrong, because it is a matter of consideration, due to the many evils that result from it and the many interests that are also brought about, then disagreement in the legitimacy of the original act is not permissible, because it is a defensive jihad that is obligatory in principle.

And of course there is honor to consider:

The true believer sees the humiliation of surrendering to the infidels, and the breaking of the banner of faith as a breaking that is difficult to recover from, and it is a painful and long affliction that he cannot truly bear, and everything less than that is easier for him as long as he has breath...

They deny Hamas uses human shields, saying that the fatwa is based on Israeli propaganda:

- There is also something unjust in his words when he provides evidence for the Mujahideen in exaggerating the mistakes, not making excuses in light of the difficult reality in which they work, and not seeing the great good deeds and huge sacrifices. Rather, it repeats and reinforces the words of the enemies without examining them, unfortunately; such as his saying: “The Mujahideen take the people of the sector as a shield to protect themselves from the attacks of their enemy without caring about the size of the disaster resulting from that.”

This is a great injustice to the Mujahideen who are doing everything they can to spare civilians any loss. They are their brothers, fathers, sons and clan, and they feel pain for their pain, so how can this be thought of them?

The signatories:

Sadiq Al-Ghariani - Grand Mufti of Libya

Muhammad al-Hasan bin al-Dido al-Shinqiti - Head of the Center for the Training of Scholars (Mauritania)

Dr. Hammam Saeed - President of the Global Coalition to Support Jerusalem and Palestine (Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood)

Hamed Al-Ali (Kuwait)

Dr. Abdul-Hay Youssef - President of the Academy of the Supporters of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace (Sudan)

Dr. Muhammad Yusri Ibrahim - Vice President of the Muslim Scholars Association (Egypt)

Dr. Nawaf Takrouri - Chairman of the Palestinian Scholars Association (Jordan)

Dr. Wasfi Ashour Abu Zaid - Professor of Maqasid and Usul al-Fiqh (Turkey, I think)

Dr. Al Hassan Al Kattani - President of the League of Scholars of the Maghreb (Morocco)

Dr. Ahmed Hawwa - Secretary General of the Syrian Scholars Association

Dr. Sheikh Attia Al-Adlan - Professor of Islamic Jurisprudence and Politics (Egypt)

Dr. Ahmed Al-Jawhari - Director of the Institute at Al-Azhar Al-Sharif

Dr. Muhammad Hammam Melhem - Head of the Miraj Center for Research and Studies (Turkey)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Last night in Brooklyn, an event was held to market real estate in Israel.

The location was kept secret except for registered attendees, but Israel haters apparently found out where it was and held a protest outside a yeshiva in Midwood.

The event did not advertise any real estate in the "occupied territories." But the Pal-Awda group protesting it considers all of Israel to be "occupied."

The antisemites who believe that Jews have no right to live in their homeland not only protested outside the alleged venue, but also marched through the heavily Jewish neighborhood shouting their genocidal slogans.

For years, pro-Israel activists have warned that when Palestinians and their allies say "occupation" they really mean all of Israel. But the media never considered that, and always claimed that the protests were merely against "occupation" in the West Bank and Gaza.

Now no one (except perhaps J-Street and Peace Now) can argue that we weren't right. it was never about "occupation" as is obvious from anyone who looked at anti-Israel propaganda before 1967.

Then, over the past year, the media pivoted and claimed that the protests were not against "occupation" but against the "Gaza war" or that they were "pro-Palestinian."

But neither of those explain the protests outside real estate events like this one or the one last June in Los Angeles that turned violent.

So is it "pro-Palestinian" to march through a Jewish neighborhood?

There is nothing "pro-Palestinian" about people who support Hamas, who cheer terror, who target synagogues and Jewish schools, who attack Jews in America. The only people upset at Jews moving to Israel are antisemites. These are just Jew-haters, nothing else.

The irony is that their attacks on Jewish institutions and neighborhoods will drive more Jews to move to Israel - exactly what they don't want to see.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

(Reported) UN Security Council draft resolution is a series of gross insults to Israel

JNS reported yesterday:

A United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an “immediate and unconditional” ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all hostages held by Hamas could come up for a vote as early as Tuesday, though the possibility of a U.S. veto looms large.

The resolution, drafted by the E10, or 10 elected members of the Security Council, is another effort by the body to bring about an end to the war or at least improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The UNSC has passed four resolutions on the matter thus far, with little to no effect, and has failed to pass resolutions a number of times.

I received what appears to be a draft of this UN resolution. I do not know if it is the latest one, but its metadata strongly indicates that it was indeed written by UN and UN Security Council employees.

It pays lip service to Israeli demands but in reality demands nothing from Hamas and ensures that Israel does not get its military goals.

The operative section says:

1. Recalls the Security Council’s primary responsibility to uphold international peace and security and demands an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire to be respected by all parties; and further reiterates its demand for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages;

If Hamas does not release the hostages, Israel would still be obligated to cease fire.

2. Reiterates its demand that the parties comply with their obligations under international law in relation to persons they detain;

Meaning, Israel is violating international law.

3. Demands immediate access by the civilian population in the Gaza Strip to basic services and humanitarian assistance indispensable to its survival, while rejecting any effort to starve Palestinians, and further demands the facilitation of full, rapid, safe and unhindered entry of humanitarian assistance at scale to and throughout the Gaza Strip and its delivery to all Palestinian civilians who need it, including to civilians in besieged north Gaza, who are in urgent need of immediate humanitarian relief, under the coordination of the United Nations;

This is a slander claiming Israel is using starvation as a method of war.

4. Calls on all parties to fully comply with international law, including international humanitarian law, notably with regard to the protection of civilians, especially women and children, and persons hors de combat as well as with regard to the protection of civilian objects;

Again, this is an insult to Israel which is adhering to international law.

5. Demands that the parties fully, unconditionally, and without delay implement all the provisions of Security Council resolution 2735 (2024), leading to, inter alia, the release of hostages, the exchange of Palestinian prisoners, the return of the remains of hostages who have been killed, the return of Palestinian civilians to their homes and neighbourhoods in all areas of Gaza, including in the north, and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza;

Hamas started the war in part to gain release of prisoners. The UN wants to reward them for the attack. Moreover, it says that Israel has no right to ever enter Gaza to go after those who murder Israeli civilians.

6. Underscores that UNRWA remains the backbone of the humanitarian response in Gaza, calls on all parties to enable the Agency to carry out its mandate as adopted by the General Assembly, in all areas of operation, with full respect for the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, and to respect international humanitarian law, including the protection of UN and humanitarian facilities, and welcomes the Secretary-General’s and UNRWA’s commitment to fully implement the recommendations of the Independent Review of Mechanisms and Procedures to Ensure Adherence by UNRWA to the Humanitarian Principle of Neutrality;

The Independent Review mentioned was not a whitewash; it noted significant deficiencies in UNRWA and gave some decent recommendations. But it didn't note the basic illegitimacy of UNRWA: an agency meant to help refugees when there are few refugees from 1948 still alive; the only UN agency with its own parallel school system and medical system and free housing on the world's dime, an agency that is dedicated to Palestinian refugees when all the rest of the world refugees use the different, more honest UNHCR and the two agencies have different rules and procedures; an agency whose purpose is to prolong sand worsen the "refugee" problem is was meant to solve.

UNRWA's policy is that it will continue to exist as long as Israel exists and does not allow millions of hostile Palestinians to become citizens. Which is why UNRWA should be dismantled, not supported.

The resolution does not address the main issue: an Iranian-supported terror organization that controlled and abused two million Palestinians and terrorized the entire state of Israel. it does not call for Hamas to be dismantled or disarmed. It only demands that the situation be turned back to October 6 - except that Israel would also have to release terrorists where they can mount another October 7.

The entire resolution is an insult and should be treated with contempt.

Yet reports say that the Biden administration is taking it seriously and working with the drafters to make it slightly less offensive. Which brings up the question of whether the lame duck administration is indeed trying to force Israel into a corner, the way its predecessor did in the waning days of the Obama administration.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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11/19 Links Pt2: Israel’s Comically Inconsistent The harrowing tale of a former Hamas hostage; Critics; Coates the Charlatan; New HRW "report" is a work of fantasy and fake law

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Israel’s Comically Inconsistent Critics

Critics of Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza, especially those in the media, really need to settle on a complaint. Too often they are effectively arguing with each other, though unintentionally. To read the daily newspapers is to see Israel accused of mutually exclusive sins.

Take the fights over humanitarian aid and postwar governance in Gaza. Today’s New York Times carries a story on the fact that an aid convoy of 109 trucks was hijacked and looted over the weekend. Only 11 of the trucks made it to their destination.

Who’s to blame? Well, we know the one group that isn’t looting convoys is the IDF. Miraculously, the IDF is also the one at fault, according to the press. “Aid agencies have said for months that woefully inadequate food supplies have led to looting, hoarding and profiteering, exacerbating the shortages,” the Times explains. That is, when food is let into Gaza, it gets stolen, usually by Hamas. This means if there are starving Gazans it is most likely Hamas that is starving them.

What’s the fix here? You guessed it—more cowbell. The aid agencies insist “that the only solution is a significant increase in deliveries.”

Just to review: Israel let in a convoy of over 100 aid trucks. Nearly 100 of them were looted. Had the convoy been 150 trucks, they would… not have been looted? It begins to sound like a riddle: How many trucks must an aid convoy be before Hamas chooses not to loot it?

And when it’s not Hamas looting the supplies, it’s still Israel’s fault. “Gaza is basically lawless,” a UN coordinator tells the Washington Post. “There is no security anywhere. Israel is ‘the occupying power,’ he said, so ‘this is on them. They need to make sure that the area is protected and secured.’”

The Post, in fact, makes a provocative accusation: that Israel is looking the other way as local gangs are becoming bolder in areas controlled by the IDF. Says the Post: “The thieves, who have run cigarette-smuggling operations throughout this year but are now also stealing food and other supplies, are tied to local crime families, residents say. The gangs are described by observers as rivals of Hamas and, in some cases, they have been targeted by remnants of Hamas’s security forces in other parts of the enclave.”

The problem, according to the Post and the UN, is that Israel is trying to crush Hamas. Local families are trying to take the reins from Hamas, and Israel stands accused of letting them steal cigarettes.

But it’s not clear the New York Times sees it that way. “The Israeli campaign in Gaza toppled much of the Hamas government, and there is no civilian administration to take its place,” states the Gray Lady. So Israeli security measures regarding humanitarian aid are too strict and too lax at the same time. Trucks are getting looted because Israel won’t reduce security enough to let more trucks in, and there’s no replacement for Hamas but also Israel needs to crack down on Hamas’s would-be replacements.

David Hirsh: Fear and denial – why we founded the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism

We set up the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (LCSCA) because we were afraid. Antisemitism had been progressively spreading into academic disciplines in the social and human sciences, and it was becoming more and more acceptable and normal. This was an antisemitism that angrily denied being antisemitic, which was carried by people who thought they opposed racism and who were convinced they were the good guys.

We were afraid because anyone who challenged this antisemitism was more and more likely to be denounced by their academic colleagues as a charlatan who misused their academic talent and perverted their disciplines in an effort to delegitimise criticism of Israel.

Hamas was founded to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. It hoped to destroy the peace process by murdering Israelis in buses and in restaurants in the name of Palestine. Hamas hoped to make Israelis believe that all Palestinians hated them and it hoped this would turn Israeli public opinion away from peace. More recently Hamas has encouraged Palestinians to murder Israelis randomly, using knives or cars, in the hope that Israelis would come to fear any Arab who they encountered. The founding document of Hamas made it clear that it regarded peace with Israel as a violation of the principles of Islam and it repeated Nazi-style antisemitism as though it was embraced by the single, authentic reading of Islam.

Happily for Hamas, the peace process did collapse, in January 2001. In August 2001, at the World Conference against Racism, in Durban, there was a formidable campaign to reset thinking about Israel from a maker of peace to an entity that was incurably evil. It sought to take us back to the 1970s UN and Soviet era. A week after Durban was the 9/11 attack on the USA, which revitalised antisemitic Islamist politics for the 21st century.

On 7 October 2023, Hamas showed its hand. It broke into Israel and murdered everybody it could find; it perpetrated a campaign of sexual violence; and it kidnapped 250 people. It turned out that by that time, there were enough people around the world who were ready to embrace elements of the Hamas view of the world.

People in our universities glorified the day of Jew-killing as ‘resistance’; they claimed that Israel’s inherently genocidal nature was the real aggression and that the day of Jew-killing was just a small, understandable response; they blamed the victims; and they denied that there was violence against Israeli civilians.

Strangely, all four of these responses to 7 October could co-exist within an individual.